


black adder

by spicyjarvis (orphan_account)



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A lot of screaming haha, Angst, Avengers are a family, Bruce Banner is done with the Avengers' shit, Confused Peter Parker, Could probably be stand-alone to the prequel, Domestic Fluff, Everyone loves Peter, Gen, Humour, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt and comfort, I JUST STOLE HIM FOR MY OWN FIC >:), NO VENOM SPOILERS, OOC Aunt May, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is done, Peter tries his best, Protective Avengers, Sad Peter Parker, Sequel, Shameless Dad!Clint, The Avengers are all worried adults who love their boy Peter, The Avengers are chaos personified, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Venom is just a hungry bitch, not movie compliant, probably more hurt than comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/spicyjarvis
Summary: whatever this alien is, it sure does a really good job of fucking peter right over.he isn't quite sure if the avengers can help him out this time....maybe it's safer to leave.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of people really enjoyed child's play  
> so here i am, writing a sequel that will not do nearly as well statistically.
> 
> this fic has no venom spoilers!!

 

 

 

The symbiote was ugly, it really was – a horror story of blacks and greys and greens and blues all at once, shrieking and whipping and crying and crawling like something you'd see in a nightmare across the thick glass panel it's trapped behind.

 

Doctor Abhi Normand stands close to the glass, watching it wail and drag itself back and forth in front of him, his eyes showing no fear or hatred but pure, unbridled curiosity instead. He’s never found himself afraid of the unknown - just fascinated by it, interested by what it’s hiding, desperate to find the potential for good it could hold within. He doesn’t see something _ugly_ in the symbiote, but something wonderful and riveting instead. Something beautifully dark and different and... and _perfect_.

 

He taps the glass. The symbiote screams at him, crawling to where his finger had touched only moments ago, whipping at the glass again and again and again until it seems to decide its escape attempts to be useless. “It… it sure is something,” he observes, eyes still shining. He turns to one of his lab assistants, a woman by the name of Lara Woodcock. “Where did you say you found it?”

 

“A forest in Kent, England,” she supplies to him, nervously glancing down at her clipboard. “In that glass tube.”

 

“I wonder what it was doing there,” Abhi murmurs. He taps the glass again, relishing in the way it reacts to it. Without taking his eyes away from the symbiote, he asks one of his lab's computer technicians, “has the test results on the sample come back yet?”

 

“Not just yet,” the man reports. He’s a good-looking fellow by the name of Arin Headerman. “They… they say they’re nearly done, they’re just having trouble keeping the sample still enough for them to finish...”

 

Abhi doesn’t know if it was a good idea to take a little bit of the symbiote away from its host in order to run some tests. Maybe that is why it is so desperate to escape – it just wishes to be whole again.

 

“Don’t worry, you’ll get it back,” he mutters to the symbiote. He has no intentions of harming it, and he guesses that losing a part of itself is stressing it out.

 

It’s then that Arin’s face goes slightly white and he’s leaning closer to his computer screen for a closer look at the message that he’s received. “Do- sir?” he says. “Sir? Sir, the symbiote got out. They said it broke through the door and is making its way… probably towards _us_ , they say.”

 

Abhi doesn’t quite know why this doesn’t strike at least some anxiety through his heart. “Is it attacking anyone?”

 

“I… well, they haven’t mentioned...”

 

Abhi breathes out hard through his nostrils. If it were to harm someone, it would definitely be something they would report. “It’s probably trying to return to the host,” he states, probably calmer than he should be, “just as I thought it may. Maybe the symbiote will grow calm once it’s whole. Maybe it will be... friendly.”

 

“You think that it’ll be fucking friendly?” Lara objects, nearly throwing down her clipboard. “Have you _seen_ it? There is _no way_ that its fr-”

 

“Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Are we not as a society trying to be less hostile towards the things we don’t understand? Why should I assume that this is a hostile organism because it looks different, because we don’t know what it is, because we don’t yet understand it?” Abhu counters, his manner calm and civilised as ever. “We reserve the right to be wary, yes, but we will not treat it as hostile based off _assumptions_ , you hear me?”

 

Lara opens her mouth but doesn’t even get the chance to begin her sentence before something small and black and shrieking comes launching into the room and sticks itself to the thick glass panel that holds it back from its host. Arin is quick to make his exit, as is Lara – leaving Abhi standing alone, watching the sample desperately attempt to reach its host.

 

He doesn’t even hesitate to open the panel so that the two could unite. It slides open at the press of a button. He doesn’t think about what letting the symbiote as a whole loose in the same room as him could result in – only about what could happen if the symbiote were to act grateful for it. About what could happen if the symbiote tried to  _thank_ him for it.

 

The sample and the host connect immediately and for a moment, Abhi watches it settle and grow that little bit stiller on the floor. His face breaks out into an infectious grin. He was right. It’s calmer. It’s _happier_ , almost, because it is finally _whole_.

 

Maybe it’s the adrenaline that this situation has pumped into his blood that took away his ability to think professionally, because he finds himself stooping, now, and reaching out a hand to touch the symbiote. It’s the symbiote that connects his fingers and its body mass, however, and shudders cascade over his entire body as it begins to crawl up his sleeve. It feels as if a snake is slithering its way up to his shoulder - it doesn’t harm him or begin to constrict. It just feels… odd. Very, very odd.

 

“You’re not as scary as you look,” the doctor murmurs as the symbiote appears out of his shirt collar and runs over his chest. “No, you’re not scary, or hostile. We just don’t understand you yet.”

 

As if it’s listening to him, it stills at his words. Abhi’s heart is beating hard, too hard to be at all healthy, but he’s grinning from ear to ear. The interaction is thrilling; a one of a kind experience he knows he will always treasure.

 

But then it begins to hurt.

 

Abhi’s smile is quick to turn to a bated gasp, and that bated gasp is even quicker to morph into a scream. The symbiote stains his shirt a chilling, ash-grey as it sinks through the material and under his skin, where it whips and shrieks and fights and turns his blood from red to black in his veins.

 

His vision goes white and he is screaming, screaming, _screaming_ , clawing at his skin, begging for it to get out, to stop hurting him, to stop doing this, to stop, to stop, to fucking  _stop_ , to stop ripping at his insides, to get out, _get out_ , get the fuck out-

 

And then it does stop.

 

Abhi hears it, then. _Speaking_ to him.

 

**"Get up** **."**

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what to do now.... type out a comment... they always warm my heart... winky face 
> 
> join my discord server and come make friends! we're all gay and hilarious!  
> https://discord.gg/VfZrvuC


	2. CHAPTER ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... heheh.

 

 

 

Peter should be used to their shit by now, but he still finds himself rather surprised when he strolls into the communal living room after school to see Clint and Sam playing a game of Jenga on Tony Stark’s sleeping forehead.

 

Except… except it isn’t a _normal_ game of Jenga.

 

“What’s with the br-”

 

But there’s a hand clamping over his mouth before he can even hope to finish, and Clint leans forward to whisper into his ear, “shhh! He’s sleeping! Be _respectful_.”

 

Peter isn’t sure whether he’d call stacking slices of bread on top of a napping man’s forehead _respectful_ , so to say, but he thinks that it’s probably better to avoid questioning it. One thing he’s learned for definite over the time he’s lived in the Tower is that going along with their antics is so much easier in the long run than trying to understand it all.

 

He pries Clint’s hand away from his mouth and stalks closer, trying to see the extent of their chaos.

 

It’s a tragic sight more than anything, really – the stack of bread slices atop Tony’s forehead has climbed to a nearly staggering thirteen and just keeps on growing as Sam keeps adding slices. The man is attempting to hold back spurts of laughter akin to a little girl when she is supposed to be quiet during class. The marksman next to him records it with his phone, masking his giggles behind his sleeve which is pulled up around his hand.

 

Peter could have felt sorry for the defacation of poor Tony in another lifetime, but this is him paying the price for falling asleep in a place where he is not hidden in the safety of his private floors or labs. That’s another thing that Peter has learned over his time here – never, ever fall asleep somewhere where you cannot protect yourself from the team’s wrath.

 

“Imagine what Steve would think if he saw you doing this,” Peter comments, shaking his head at the sight before his eyes.

 

“Oh, he did,” Sam says. “He made a point of pretending he didn’t.”

 

It is then that the teenager wishes he’d done the same, because he isn’t sure whether or not he wants to be involved in this. He steps back to collect his bag from the spot he’d dropped it in upon entry – the threshold of the door into the communal living room – and is about to step into the corridor, when he hears Clint draw in a quick, sudden gasp and Sam bite out a soft curse under his breath.

 

“Shit,” Sam whispers. “Did he wake up?”

 

Peter has to swallow his laughter – one of the slices from the top of the impressive stack has fallen down, and has landed across Tony’s peacefully sleeping face, balancing across his button nose and the tip of his chin. After watching the billionaire’s face for movement, Peter concludes, “no, I think you’re okay.”

 

Clint audibly releases the breath he’s been holding. That mischevious, amused tilt returns to the corners of his lips. “He really needs the sleep, doesn’t he?” he murmurs. “A grenade could go off right now and he wouldn’t bat an eyelid.”  
  
“I doubt that,” Sam says, as he precariously reaches over and places another slice atop the stack. It wobbles dangerously, but doesn’t go near to collapsing.

 

“I dunno,” Peter counters. He leans in on the balls of his feet for a closer look. “He looks pretty dead to the world right now. Oh, God, he isn’t dead, is he?”

 

“Do you really think we’d stack bread on our friend’s forehead if he _died_ , Peter?” Sam exclaims, whispers now growing harsh. “We’re not _that_ heartless. God damn.”

 

“I dunno,” Sam says, so as to mimic Peter. “Maybe we are.”

 

The teenager giggles. Clint doesn’t seem to notice that Sam is trying to carefully place another slice of bread on the stack and he delivers a sharp elbow to the younger man’s armpit. The impact of the blow combined with the marksman’s natural strength sends Sam’s hand ploughing through the stack, scattering slices everywhere from over the back of the couch to all over Tony’s sleeping body.

 

And the sleeping giant stirs.

 

“What the shit, Barton,” Sam curses as he’s stumbling backwards over the coffee table, trying to get away from Tony before the billionaire wakes up and sees the culprits. He’s a nice enough man on the daily, but who knows how he’ll react to waking up under a blanket of fucking bread slices, especially with that arsenal of Iron Man suits he has stored…

 

Clint scrambles back too, with a lot more of the grace trained into him than Sam. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” he hisses. He’s already jumped over the back of the sofa by then, as if it would protect him. “I didn’t mean to!”

 

“He’s going to kill us,” Sam is claiming. “Peter, get back! Are you insane, child?”

 

But Peter doesn’t move a muscle – just leans over the arm of the couch to get a better look at Tony’s face. The man’s eyelids are still peacefully closed, and the corners of his lips remain relaxed as they should when someone sleeps. His body hasn’t so much as shifted underneath the blanket of bread slices he lies underneath. In fact, the only thing that’d changed is the direction in which his head was tilted.

 

Huh.

 

“Huh.”

 

It’s really quite hilarious, seeing such an empowered billionaire, genius inventor and the CEO of a brilliant company that has saved and improved countless lives… in _this_ situation. Part of him wants to gush about how lucky he is to know the man so personally. Another part of him wants to take a photo and put it on his Twitter feed (even though he knows he can’t).

 

“P-”

 

“It’s fine, guys,” Peter says, barely reigning in his grin. “He’s still asleep.”

 

The top of Sam’s head appears comically over the back of the couch. “He is?” he says. “He didn’t wake up? At all?”

 

Clint jumps up from the behind the couch, as he’s tidying his hair up with his fingers. “I knew that,” he claims. The marksman stalks closer to Tony’s sleeping body, hesitating every few steps, as if afraid that Peter was lying and he is actually very much awake. “He really needed the sleep, huh?”

 

“Maybe that’s his superpower. Being able to sleep through anything,” Peter giggles behind his hand.

 

“Oh, boy, would I kill for _that_ power,” Sam mutters. “Man, I’d sleep for fucking _days._ ”

 

“You do that anyway,” Clint retorts, playfully delivering a push to the younger man’s shoulder. Sam takes the light blow with a breath of laughter and pushes right back.

 

 

.

 

 

 

They really had the nerve to send Peter out for more bread.

 

He doesn’t really see why _he_ is the one being forced out for more bread when it wasn’t _him_ who wasted it all playing Jenga on Tony’s forehead, but he isn’t one to complain, so he just sucked it up and went to get it over and done with.

 

It’s pretty nice out, anyway. Not too busy, but not frighteningly empty at the same time. There’s a slight fog settled over the ground, a soft dusting of gold where the sun pools around the buildings and across the street. It’s not exactly warm, but it’s warm enough to the point where he can manage not with a coat but with just a reasonably thick hoodie instead. Peter nestles into his, the hood over his ears, his hands buried deep into his pockets. The money Clint gave him and a pack of mints sit in the front pocket of his jeans.

 

He takes his sweet time to the store. With music playing soft beats into his ears and the air feeling as refreshing at it does, he allows himself to relax and drown out the whine of the city as he walks. It’s one of those moments when he’s all of a sudden aware of his contentment, of how happy he actually feels, of how well everything is going right now.

 

His grades are good, his classmates are pretty nice people (even if they are hesitant to get to know him – but, to be fair, he’s not really intent on making friends with them anyway) and living with the fucking _Avengers_ has been really, really great. Not only that, but his Sunday meet-ups with Aunt May over coffee has been going well, too, and he finally feels more comfortable around her, even if their relationship just doesn’t feel quite the same anymore.

 

Last week, she’d told Peter that she rescued a dog. To keep her company, she’d said, because she doesn’t really want to think about remarrying just yet, and the apartment is just so quiet now. She had described him as ‘a scruffy little black thing, with a golden muzzle’, and Peter kept the fact that it sounds just like the dog he’d befriended while he was homeless contently to himself.

 

The shop is warm when he steps inside and the cashier – a kind, knowing woman named Ashley with dark hair and eyes – is smiling at him from where she is restocking the sandwich aisle. She knows Peter by now, and knows very well who he lives with. Peter would not be surprised if she somehow knew he’s Spiderman. “Afternoon, Pete,” she says. “How’s your day been? You look drained.”

 

“It’s been pretty good,” he tells her absently. He’s quick to disappear towards the bread section. “Hey, what bread did Clint get when he was in here? He told me to get exactly what he got last time, but...”

 

Ashley bustles around to follow him. “This one,” she says.

 

The teenager pulls the loaf she points out down from the top shelf, and then takes another for good measure. Along with a bottle of diet coke to reward himself for trekking all the way out to the store for something he doesn’t really care about, he places the loaves on the counter and sits back on the heels of his feet to wait for Ashley to scan his items.

 

It’s as she’s bagging it all that he feels it – the growing discomfort in his stomach, the tingle of caution in the very front of his brain, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

 

And so he glances around subtly, hoping to God that it’s actually nothing to worry about.

 

… he knows he’s never been that lucky.

 

“Are you alright, Peter?” Ashley asks, then, and Peter is suddenly aware that he’s still in public.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. How much is it?”

 

“Three dollars fifty.”

 

Peter pulls out a ten dollar bill and pushes it towards the woman, who visibly hesitates to take it. “Go on, Ash,” he urges to her, grinning despite the gradually increasing anxiety twisting his stomach, “it’s not as if I’ll miss it.”

 

“I forget you live with a billionaire,” Ashley says, and carefully takes the bill, as if afraid to damage it. Bless her – Peter knows her well enough to know that she’s always needed the extra cash, even if it’s only a little. “Did you want change, Pete?”

 

“No, Ash, just take-”

 

But then his spidey-sense is blaring sirens again and Peter hardly gets time to react before the front door to the store is smashing against the wall with such force that the glass panel shatters into an impossible jigsaw of shards across the floor. In the wall it hits, a crack appears in the structure, running all the way up and across the ceiling.

 

“Shit- fuck,” a small voice curses. “Fucking- shut up! Shut up! Look what you made me- fuck!”

 

Huh.

 

Immediately, Ashley ducks behind the counter, and Peter behind the nearest aisle to him. He’s lucky enough to have his webshooters on his wrists – he nearly never leaves the Tower without them for exactly this reason.

 

Peter feels anxiety take a hold of his stomach and his spidey-sense is a constant presence in the back of his head, but he works up enough courage to peek around the aisle. What he sees is not what he expected – the person who stands in the door does not look like the dangerous type at all, but Peter by now knows better than to assume he is anything but. A man of neat black hair, coloured skin and kind, brown eyes, wearing an off-white shirt, black jeans and a stained lab coat tied like a jumper around his waist. A pair of glasses pushes his quiff back off his forehead, which is coated in a layer of sweat.

 

“Stop talking to me! I get it, I get it, we’re getting food now!” the man snaps again, to no one in particular. Both his hands are clenched in his scalp and his breath is coming out in short gasps, as if he’s desperate for air.

 

Rationally, Peter knows that maybe it is best to just mind his own business and leave the man be, but he has always been the irrational type, especially when it comes to protecting others. There’s no way he’s about to leave Ashley alone with this strange man in her store – not when he can do something to help her out.

 

And she needs it, Peter thinks, as he glosses his eyes over the poor woman still crouching behind the counter. She’s quivering slightly in the hands and her face is distraught; from fear or because she knows how much she’ll have to pay for that broken door, she doesn’t know. Peter just prays that she stays down until Peter can figure this out.

 

The man disappears into the nearest aisle, muttering and grumbling and wheezing to nothing and no one. Peter can hear him staggering, tripping, bumping into the side of the aisle, and distantly wonders if he’s just very, very drunk.

 

… and very, very strong, by the looks of the fucking _door_.

 

“Shut up! Shut up!”

 

Deliberately pretending that Ashley isn’t motioning for him to hide behind the counter with her, Peter turns and creeps down to the end of the aisle. He presses his thumbs against his webshooters to activate them – just in case. “Sir?” he calls out. “Sir, are you okay?”

 

“I-I’m fine,” that small voice comes back to him, suspiciously fast. “Fine. Fine. Just- fuck. Very hungry.”

 

“Where are you?”

 

The hesitation is almost audible. “Nowhere,” the man says, “don’t come near me. I- I have a para- fuck! Fuck, shut the fuck up-”

 

The following series of crashes is enough to lead Peter to where the man is. Cautiously – so, very cautiously – Peter cranes his neck around the corner, to see him sitting against the box of sandwiches Ashley had been restocking from earlier, wheezing hard and clutching his scalp so hard that his knuckles are white. There is food all over the floor – sandwich packets scattered everywhere, drinks still rolling across the ground. A bottle of coke hits his foot and he kicks it away absently.

 

The man doesn’t look dangerous at this point – he looks scared. Absolutely terrified. And Peter feels not fear, but concern instead. His spidey-sense hums and frets in the back of his mind but he swallows it.

 

“Hey, man,” Peter says, taking a couple of steps closer. “This doesn’t look like ‘fine’ to me.”

 

“God, you’re a kid. A- a kid!” the man gasps out. The sweat sheen on his forehead is starting to drip down his temples. “Shut- shut up. Shut up! He’s just a fucking- a fucking kid. Don’t touch h-him. You piece of shit.”

 

Peter doesn’t have any clue what this guy is talking about, but he isn’t deterred. “Let go of your hair,” he says, sounding a whole lot calmer then he should, “you’ll tear it out.”

 

“No, no, no...”

 

Is it a panic attack? Is he really just... drunk? Peter is struggling to tell. He wants to get closer, to try and help him out more, but he doesn’t want to overstep his boundaries or make the man panic even more. It doesn’t seem like he wants him to come any closer. “Do you need an ambulance?” he tries.

 

Should he call the Avengers…?

 

The man hides his face between his knees, his hands now resting on the back of his head. His breathing sounds as if it’s calmed down, now, but Peter is sure that his heart rate is skyrocketing. “Fucking shut up,” he’s muttering. “Stop talking… stop talking...”

 

“What’s your name?”

 

There’s a pause.

 

“… Abhi.”

 

“Alright, Abhi. I’m Peter.”

 

Another pause. Abhi sucks in a deep breath. “Don’t fucking touch him,” he says to no one. “Don’t go near him. Don’t make me fucking do that.”

 

Peter sits back on his heels, feeling his spidey-sense begin to fret once more. “Should I call the police? An ambulance?” he asks again. “Because it really seems like you need an ambulance, dude. You really don’t look so good.”

 

“I- uh. Don’t- don’t call anyone. Please. I’m going now. I’m going.”

 

Abhi clambers to his feet, but hardly half a second passes before his body is tipping towards the ground again. It’s purely reflexive when Peter darts forward to catch him before he can hit the floor. He carefully, slowly, anxiously lowers his head and back to the ground. “I’m calling an ambulance,” Peter tells him, giving him no room to object. “You’re not leaving like this. You’re clearly really ill, dude.”

 

“No!”

 

“Sorry, dude.” Peter pulls out his phone. “I can’t leave you like this.”

 

It’s then that his spidey-sense blares and something black shoots forward out of Abhi’s hand to snatch his phone from his hand, smashing it onto the floor with such force that it just shatters into a mess of glass shards and wires on the ground. Peter jumps backwards with a gasp of surprise and reflexively places his two fingers on his webshooters, ready to defend himself at a moment’s notice.

 

“ **Don’t call anyone!”** Abhi growls out, and the sudden change in his voice strikes fear through Peter’s anxiously drumming heart. Where his tone had been scared and small beforehand, it is now deep and angry, rasping and husky in the throat – more like a snarling wild animal instead of a man having a hard time.

 

“Woah, woah, woah,” Peter says; it’s a weak attempt to diffuse the situation. “What was that? The fucking- the black thing.”

 

“Your phone,” Abhi wails. “Why did you do that? I’ll have to pay for it.”

 

“It’s okay, I can get a new one myself,” Peter reassures him.

 

The phone is the last thing on his mind, though – he can’t stop replaying what he saw come out of Abhi’s hand in his mind. Something black, screaming and whipping, had _shot out of his fucking fingers_. Like some kind of _other being._ Maybe he’s not dealing with a drunkard, but with something more... supernatural instead.

 

Huh.

 

Maybe he _should_ call the Avengers.

 

“Don’t go near him,” Abhi is muttering. “Don’t hurt the kid. He’s a kid. He’s a kid. He’s a fucking kid.”

 

“Abhi,” Peter says. “Who’re you-”

 

But he doesn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence, because suddenly Abhi is writhing on the ground, screaming and screaming and _screaming –_ begging for someone to get out, to stop hurting him, to ‘get away from the poor fucking kid’…?

 

Peter doesn’t know what to do. He knows he should press the panic button on his webshooters, because he can’t deal with- with _whatever_ this is alone, but it’s as if he’s frozen – watching Abhi struggle against an invisible force on the ground, hearing him grunt and scream and _beg_ for mercy from something that isn’t even there, from something that Peter is terrified of without even knowing what it is...

 

… and then it stops.

 

Abhi lies still, breathing hard.

 

And Peter thinks that maybe, they’re in the clear, and presses the panic button on the webshooters as he steps forward to offer any kind of assistance.

 

But he’s not that lucky. He never is.

 

Because something black and shrieking pulls itself from Abhi’s torso, and Peter doesn’t even have time to even try to react before it slams into his body and his vision goes absolutely white.

 

And all he can do is... scream.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that wasn't very cash money. comment your thoughts?
> 
> join my discord! we're all gay as fuck! and we love friends!  
> https://discord.gg/VfZrvuC


End file.
